Dylan, do you think the roster for this season is set? As it stands now, depth (particularly at the guard spots) could be a concern. Bench rotation looks like Simpson, Donnal, Wilson and Watson as the only other viable option.
Why the assumption that Donnal is coming off the bench? He started 25 of the team’s 36 games last season. I’m as optimistic as the next guy about Wagner’s ability, but I’ve always presumed Mo would be coming off the bench this season. But if Mo is starting ahead of Donnal that’s a really good sign, IMO.
But back to your original premise, a 9-man rotation is pretty big in Beilein’s world. More years than not he tends to focus in on seven or eight guys to shoulder key minutes. Broken down more specifically:
- If Simpson is the type of recruit most people say he is, pencil him in as a 20-25mpg freshman backing up Walton and MAAR – a pair of 30-33mpg guys at the guard spots.
- Donnal/Wagner splitting minutes at the 5 spot, with Teske or Davis potentially getting 2-5 “foul trouble” caused minutes per game
- Irvin (30-33mpg), Robinson (28-30mpg) on the wing with Wilson and/or Watson and/or 3-guard lineup (MAAR-X-Walton) filling in the remaining 20mpg on the wings.
All Ibi really has to do is be able to make there’s and he’s already on or with Dawkins in terms of game impact. If he’s able to play any sort of defense then he’s already better than what Dawkins brought to the table. I also firmly believe that Wilson will be a large improvement at the backup 4 compared to Chatman. If all goes well I think we have a nice little 9 man rotation that could make some damage. The issue of course is that the only position able to sustain an injury and still have a scholarship player using all the minutes is the 5.
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to be fair, dawkins averaged about 44% of threes on close to a 100 attempts each of the last two years. thats close to elite when it comes to “making threes”. yes, he was useless at most everything else, but it is HIGHLY unlikely Ibi even comes close to that kind of shooting prowess his freshman year. also, JB had 2+ years to watch Chatman and DJ and pretty much always played Cam first. I dont think there should be too much optimism that DJ will have any bigger impact on the game than what Cam did. he may play more due to circumstances, but there isnt any evidence that he’ll be a more efficient or useful player than Cam with those minutes.
Kam* was a very poor player last year by most measures, but Wilson not playing doesn’t really have any correlated meaning to that. Kam was very bad at the 4 while Wilson was bad as a 5. From everything Beilein has said this offseason it appears Wilson will be moving back to his natural position at the wing.
And if Watson can shoot even 38% on a decent amount of threes it sets him up pretty well for being a better overall player than Dawkins was.
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I guess i have more doubt about Ibi than you. While I agree that if Ibi can make 38% of his 3s that would be a great start for a freshman. I just didnt see much in his highlight video that says he’ll be a MUCH better defender. The bar is set pretty low, but from his highlight videos, it didnt look like we were getting a high level defender. Aubrey was instant offense, even if was one dimensional. He saved us in a few games with his shooting. And he probably cost us some games with his defense. Will Ibi’s improvement in one area be enough to overcome the downgrade in another? I guess we’ll find out.
And on Wilson, yes he was playing the 5. Thats because JB chose to play him as our 4th in line 5, even when he was demonstrably bad at it, over playing a position of need on the team (the backup 4). I doubt that was because JB thought it was essential we had a 4th big. I think that was because as poor as Cam may have been, DJ was no better at the 4 spot. If he was, i can guarantee JB would have played him there.
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He doesn’t have to be a great, or even good defender to be an improvement. All he has to be is anything but a sieve and it’ll be an upgrade.
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With Irvin starting, the 4 spot was a lot more secure than the 5, which had zero established players coming into the season. If none of the other 3 centers proved themselves before the season then it makes absolute sense that Wilson would be out there.
I think — and I have not talked to the coaches so this is just a supposition — the staff kept DJ Wilson at the “5” the past two seasons because Beilein & Co did not have a strong comfort level with any of the options in the post position and figured the more candidates the higher the probability one or two good options would emerge.
Exiting the 2015-16 season, I think the staff has a stronger comfort level with Donnal’s ability to play the “5” against B1G opponents as well as an excitement over Wagner’s potential and the staff probably likes the odds that one of Teske or Davis can jump in as a reasonable third option for the position.
If the coaches feel they have a more proven depth chart at the “5” slot, there wouldn’t be the need to play Wilson out of position in 2016-17.
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I think you are underselling the impact Dawkins had on the program the past two seasons; his instant offense from the bench was a nice option for the coaches to have. His ability to shoot high volume and high percentage from 3-pt range spread the court nicely for Walton-Irvin-Levert.
And I think you may be overselling Watson’s freshman year expectations; down the line he may well be a solid rotation player, but with is slight frame it is hard to see him being much more than a number-9 guy in the rotation as a freshman. But with the minutes Walton-MAAR-Irvin are likely to shoulder, plus the depth Simpson brings to the backcourt, there likely isn’t the need for Watson to be more than a limited role player as a freshman.
Dawkins may have been under recruited but there was a reason why. Besides being a good teammate it seems he had good athleticism he is a good spot up and decent curl off the pick shooter. But his faults were many, such as ball handling skills (one to two dribble maximum) poor defense and overall lack of basketball instincts or awareness.
We have yet to see what Ibi Watson will bring as far as defense but it can’t get worse than Dawkins (can it). And just going by tape I would give Ibi the better handle and better instincts. If he can shoot a little or give Mich as much as Irvin did his freshman year (defense was not very good) he will help the team. His shot mechanics are not broken in my eyes so lets see if JB can coach him up to being a consistent 3 point shooter.
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A lot of people appreciate Dawkin’s ability to shoot and make difficult 3’s at very good clip. His offensive contribution was appreciated by most. A lot of those same people simultaneously view his defense and general feel for the game (beyond shooting 3’s) to be next level horrible. I am not sure everyone appreciates how bad his defense was. I know I sound like a jerk when I ask but: was Dawkins a worse defender than 95 percent of division 1? I think so. The good news is Dawkins will become a valuable player if he can even become solidly below average on defense. Likewise, when comparing Dawkins to other players the other player will have an insane advantage in terms of his value to the team relative to Dawkin’s if that player is merely average defensively.
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No, I really don’t think I am. That’s great that he can catch and shoot, and I acknowledge his positive impact there, but we don’t exactly have many guys creating those opportunities for him. And as GTFOMC said, his defense was unrealistically bad. Like D2 level bad.
This is so right. Yes, Dawkins fell asleep at the wheel on D a few times, and a car crash emerged. But he is a great shooter–not a good shooter–and he is above replacement level finishing on the break. He was a very strong offensive contributor, even without the ability to dribble or pass.
I would be very surprised if Ibi approaches his contributions. Ibi is a projection recruit – good athlete, relatively unskilled. Very unlikely (like all Freshmen) to be able to play consistent DI defense - will over-help, ball-watch, all the other sins. He might be better one-on-one than Aubrey, and he might be able to guard a 4 (he’s thicker), but that’s a real stretch.
Hard to imagine a player like Ibi, who MIGHT be 40th percentile defensively and 25th percentile offensively, will be better than Aubrey, who was like 80th percentile offensively (and 5-10th percentile defensively).
I think it’s absolutely ridiculous to call Aubrey in the 80th percentile of all offensive players and then turn around and say Ibi would be in the 40th. Dawkins could shoot threes very well, we’ve already covered that, but catch and shoot threes (the only ones he could get) take up around 25% of Michigan’s offense. What he couldn’t do was practically anything else, including creating for himself. Combine that with his defense and you Ibi has a good chance of making up for Dawkins’ potentially better shooting with his potentially better defense. However, I don’t see how randomly throwing out percentiles without any statistical basis whatsoever is a good way to judge a player. This is especially true for someone who has not played a single minute of college basketball. All I’ve said is that Ibi’s not going to have huge shoes to fill. Whether he does that or not is something that no message board argument is going to tell.
Except that Dawkins, like Watson, was a projection recruit, only more so. Dawkins was not a great shooter in high school or in prep school–that came at Michigan after they changed the arc and release on his shot. Will Watson be the same–maybe or maybe not (they couldn’t make Chatman, for example, into a really good shooter)–but I like the looks of his shot better coming into the program than I did that of Dawkins.
I don’t know whether Watson will be as good as Dawkins, much less better; I do think, though, that you may be underestimating the impact of Dawkins’ incredibly bad defense on the overall defensive product. IMO, it’s a lot easier to have an offensive hole (where the guy can contribute in other ways, such as setting screens, spacing the floor, hitting the offensive glass) than it is to have a defensive hole which impacts the way everyone has to play. Maybe, if we were really good at the other positions defensively, or had a great rim protector, we could get away with a Dawkins like defensive player more easily, but we aren’t and we don’t.
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Exactly. None of us are saying Watson will 100% be better than Dawkins. We’re just saying that he’ll have an easier time than some assume.
In Big Ten play, Donnal averaged:
57.5% from the field
34.8% from three
10.6 ppg
5.0 rpg
1.0 bpg
He quielty had avery productive Big Ten season. I think Wagner has NBA potential and would love for him to earn a starting spot, but I don’t think Donnal coming off the bench is that clear cut.
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The perception that Donnal was awful last year still baffles me. He had 25+ twice in the big ten season, and his transformation into a solid big seemingly came out of nowhere. I’ll be very pleasantly surprised if Davis, Teske or even Wagner averages almost 11 and 5 in big ten play by their sophomore year
I think it’s fine to say Dawkins was a poor defender but I do believe people are overstating it. At the end of the day he only played 13 mpg and had his minutes cut large for certain stretches and the team was still poor defensively. Dawkins is an easy scapegoat nobody is going to call out any other player for their crap D. Look at some of these numbers.
Dawkins 4 mins against Maryland in 86-82 loss, Maryland shoots 54%. Maybe Dawkins was awful in those 4 mins but I bet there were other culprits.
Purdue 87-70 loss. Dawkins 12 minutes, Purdue hits 76% of their shots in the 2nd half. Dawkins plays 4 minutes enters down 10, taken out when down 7. Doesn’t return until 2-3 mins left down 15.
Purdue 17 point loss in B1G Tourney 11 minutes. Purdue shoots 52% for the game. Plays 3 minutes in first half and is a +4 while out there left when the game was tied. Enters in the 2nd half when team was down 15 leaves after 7 minutes and the team is down 10.
I am well aware that ± is the best indicator but if Dawkins enters these games and isn’t a net negative I don’t know how we can paint him with the brush of being a horrible defender. Let’s look at guys who played 30+ mpg instead of a guy playing 13 mpg.
Maybe this year this will be a terrific defensive team and Dawkins was the biggest issue I have my doubts about that though. Easy to find a scapegoat though.
Sorry but I think that Wagner can average those numbers or more as long as he can stay out of foul trouble. If he gets the minutes I think we will like his production plus I see him as a better passer. On the defensive end I think his athleticism will show where he is much more quicker and can block shots at a higher rate. I also think his overall basketball IQ/awareness is much higher than Donnal’s. I like Donnal but to me he would be the perfect backup five (5) for this team.